Skyrim is worse than Oblivion in every way

Oh, I just wanted to say Dawnguard is a lot more impressive than I expected.

Remember how Morrowind used to bring this feeling of the player being drawn into a thousands years old conspiracy, with unfinished businesses from many ages back coming to weigh down on your shoulders? This game has an element of that. When you explore the reclusive world of vampires in this game, you see the decaying cobweb-ridden mansions, the unfinished laboratory experiments, the centuries old traps, the journals detailing all the old feuds, and the secret lives without anybody else knowing of it. It is like the movie Sunset Boulevard, involving people stuck in ages long past and still clinging to their old obsessions, while their manor rots and falls apart.

In the chapter Chasing Echoes, there is a hint of the Beth DuClare's Mansion section from Deus Ex, with a daughter learning about a secret life her mother lived behind her back, with her commenting on everything that she is seeing. Twisting a candlelight here or pushing a bookshelf there, and then rooms open up to show what was really happening for hundreds upon hundreds of years. And in typical Elder Scrolls fashion, you see details of old intrigues of members of royal families who were plotting against one another. When I read Valerica Volkihar's journal and read her description of how Lord Harkon was slowly going insane with his obsession with an Elder Scrolls prophecy, I was reminded of the journal of Prince Lhotun's brother in Daggerfall, who wrote on how his father hated him so deeply that he threw him into a werewolf lair to die.

Storyfag shit aside, the levels and the combat encounters are pretty decent. There is one moment where an excavation site of the Vigilants of Stendarr has all these ramps and platforms in all directions, with lots of Stendarr priests firing at you with their crossbows from all directions far far away across the underground mines. And yeah, the crossbow bolts really sting when a player is hit by them, and you know you have to either kill them quickly or GTFO. Plus, as a Conjuration and Restoration magician, I enjoy the challenge of finding a harder and yet harder vampire enemy so that I can enthrall him and make him my servant. I currently have two Master Vampire thralls, but I hope to eventually enthrall the higher level vampires that the DLC promises.

 

A plant?

 

Heh, well, any praise should be balanced with criticism, I suppose. There are some serious problems that come to mind.

Every second person who played Dawnguard has faced a game-breaking bug where Moth Priest Dexion Evicus remains permanently hostile to the player, thus preventing any advancement of the game. I believe this alone should be good enough reason not to buy Dawnguard, since there is a serious gamble of you putting twenty dollars into something you can't even play or finish. As much as I like Dawnguard, its serious bugs may be the only reason I'd encourage those on the fence to avoid it.

Other than that, this one is a bit of nagger. One does not become a CEO on his first entry level job, one does not enter a FIFA World Cup team at the age of 14, and one does not become a Prime Minister after his first run for Parliament. But in the power fantasies of Dawnguard's vampire questline, this is different, where you become a Vampire Lord from the moment you join House Volkihar. That isinsane. The game seems to indicate that there are only four Vampire Lords present in Tamriel at the time. And that a Vampire Lord isn't even a vampire, but a half-Daedroth and half-mortal. A sired servant of Molag Bal, if you will. Those of us who saw the video of the Skyrim Game Jam were under the impression that one had to work towards becoming a Vampire Lord - starting as an ordinary vampire, going up to Master Vampire, and then finally become a Vampire Lord. But no, a Vampire Lord can only be sired as one from the first bite, and your player get to become one of the most powerful creatures in Tamriel immediately and without any conditions.

What is worse is that a Vampire Lord is basically a different character altogether from the one you built. If you were a Dunmer Spellsword and a Vampire, then both your Spellsword and Vampire skills complement one another. But when you transform into a Vampire Lord, you can't use any of your normal character's skills. Your advancement as a Nord/Imperial/Breton/whatever is entirely independent of your advancement as a Vampire Lord. It's like switching classes in Torment, except you can do it anytime anywhere. Basically, a Level 1 character who becomes a Vampire Lord is on par with a Level 84 character who becomes a Vampire Lord. A simple implication of this is that with the level scaling in the game, a Level 1 Vampire Lord will be able to retain more power without facing level-scaled enemies. Plus, Vampire Lords have their own separate XP-based advancement, based on how many people you kill. So you can max out all your Vampire Lord perks by killing lots of people, and you will still ONLY face Level 1 enemies.

 

Czyżby Wieża w końcu upadła?

 

Jakieś dwa lata temu. A premiera Skyrima okazała się krótkotrwałą próbą reanimacji truposza.

 

You're surprised? There hasn't been a good game in this series since Daggerfall. Morrowind was fucking shit. It's obvious the designers had nowhere to go with the series and just wanted to make a quick buck. Uglier graphics, smaller dungeons, smaller world... it's like they didn't even know what the series was about. They should have focused on making good rather than advanced graphics and on improving rather than changing Daggerfall. There were a lot of things not included in Daggerfall... all those fucking items with no use. Why not make light sources useful, expand on the ideas of ships and houses? Maybe they did, but after getting railroaded from one town to another, some tiny little piece of shit wedged between a mountain and a cliff, being able to walk into people's house and take useless shit with impunity, I said fuck it. I don't even remember if the game had music, but it sure as hell wasn't like Daggerfall's. It looked like they spent thousands of fucking dollars making the NPCs look pretty in close-ups and just said to fuck with the gameplay. They really had no fucking idea what they were doing.. Game of the Year in 2003 means shit of course, but still, I would've picked Fatal Frame II, Shadowbane, or UT2003 over fucking Morrowind.It reminds me of some fucking shit like Minecraft, no challenge, just do whatever the fuck you want, doesn't give a shit about realism or atmosphere, like Barbie's fucking Dream House for adults.

 

'Bards are playing and people are chatting'. Who gives a fuck? Daggerfall is regarded by a lot of people as the pinnacle of cRPGs and it didn't have that shit. Everything in its shitty sequels is cosmetic. Bethesda didn't have the fucking balls to take it to the next level. I'm talking a careful study of what made Daggerfall good and what could be added without changing the feel. Instead they fucking sold out to get a Game of the Year and a console port. The best part about Daggerfall was that you could just take off and fucking go places. Camp out in the middle of a field after walking 30 minutes outside of a town... come up on a coven, dungeon, farmhouse, etc. Do quests for people in the wilderness, join different holy fucking orders, bust open mysterious houses, deal with court intrigue, roll up in a town at dusk after clearing out a harpy nest or attic of rats, make it to the fighter's guild just before they closed, spend the night there, raise in ranks (very slowly) and get cool privileges. In Morrowind you start on a fucking island or some shit, can't go anywhere, there's some punk offering to give you a ride on an animal, you can kill fucking crabs and gain levels from it. Dungeons are generic as fuck and monsters are the first thing you see when you pop in. What the fuck... Final Fantasy XI's the only game I've played where the predecessor sucked, and that was an MMORPG. You couldn't pay me to play Oblivion or whatever. If a company fucks up a sequel that bad, you know something's wrong. And why did it take 7 fucking years for them to make a sequel? Don't tell me they working on the game for that long. The intro wasn't fucking compelling at all. And for fuck's sake hire a goddamn composer. Did Morrowind even have music?

 

This post contains more bullshit than random topic on official Beth forum, but the world in MW is indeed quite small, smaller than in Oblivion too. The big world in TES III is an illusion, effect of clever author's tricks and still a lot of people are thinking that Vvardenfell is really enormous. When you use a MGE which add a distant land option, it's quite simple to see how big in fact is our dear island.

 

It was so packed with content it didn't need to be enormous. You could walk from one end to the other in a short span of time.

 

Even with MGE's distant land, Vvardenfell feels larger and more like a real place than Oblivion. Skyrim might seem a bit larger, but its quest compass detracts a lot from the explorefaggotry that made Morrowind so great.

 

Skyrim's problem, like Oblivion's, is density of content. Skyrim is actually probably a bit bigger than Oblivion but, like Oblivion, there is also less to do in between locations. That said I also kind of prefer the more natural feel to the world. Oblivion was basically window-dressing until you found a dungeon or oblivion gate or town somewhere. Skyrim's world doesn't feel quite so much like bullet points on a map.

 

Come on, sea, a lot less to do between locations?

In Skyrim, you have one gigantic underground network known as Blackreach that spreads over the entire province. This Blackreach, a giant world of underground rivers, waterfalls, and floating and glowing jellyfish, is connected to three other underground cities - Alftand, Mzinchaleft, and Raldbthar. Blackreach itself is divided into Field Laboratory, Debate Hall, Pumping Station, Catacombs, Ruins, Towers, War Quarters, Pumphouse, and the Farmhouse. Besides all of these, there is one giant laboratory called the Tower of Mzark. Alftand is divided into the Cathedral, the Animonculory, and the main city. Mzinchaleft has the Gatehouse to Blackreach, the Falmer quarters, and the Dwemer quarters. Raldbthar has a marketplace, a military storehouse, the Aetherium Forge, and a Centurion quarters.

In other words, you have one single continuous underground network of 20 locations connected together with six points of entry (two for each connected city) and one single hub. Cathedrals, marketplaces, barracks, zoos, all placed together. And it takes several hours to fully explore the entire network.

And in this single underground world, you have 11 quests:

1. Elder knowledge
2. Discerning the transmundane
3. Return to your roots
4. Arniel's endeavour
5. Maluril contract
6. Shalidor's insights
7. Grimsever
8. Sulla Trebatious' expedition
9. Lost to the ages
10. Mourning never comes
11. Dawnguard Dragon Scroll quest

Several of these quests are connected together. Discerning The Transmundane, for example, provides the Attunement Sphere, which is required for reaching Sinderion's laboratory and finishing the Return to your Roots quests, while also assisting in the completion of the Elder Knowledge and the Dawnguard dragon scroll quest in the same area. Solely by virtue of entering any of the the Blackreach access points, you end up triggering or completing several quests at the same time. You enter Mzinchaleft to find the Dwarven Mechanism, find Maluril Ferano - a notorious wanted bandit - blocking your path, end up retrieving the Grimsever for Mjoll the Lioness on the way by defeating a Dwemer Centurion, enter Blackreach and find hundreds of Geode Veins used for mining Soul Gems (that you may need for several other quests), bump into Alain DuFont and his bandits while trying to find the Dwemer laboratory for the Elder Scroll, and so on and so forth. Oh, and you also end up transcribing a lexicon of knowledge and collect several hundreds of Dwarven Metal Ingots and discovering the rare Falmer armour, the lightest heavy armour set in the game. A lot of things to do concentrated in one place.
When I first entered one of the Blackreach dungeons, I lost track of all the tasks I was juggling around at the same time. So when you say that Skyrim has a lack of things to do between locations, I believe you are seriously mistaken. I mean, the Blackreach network is not even 5% of Skyrim, and lots of players may not even have seen the Blackreach network.

 

Blackreach is a large and cool dungeon, and one of the few truly nice parts of Skyrim. But I don't see how that has any bearing whatsoever on the overworld gameplay I was referring to.

 

I find it disturbing he knows all the quest and locale names.

 

I'm not sure about exact differences between Oblivion and Skyrim when it comes density or amount of content, but Skyrim's world design is much better than Oblivion's.
Thanks to better placing of (natural) barriers and such, the world feels much better.
Now, admittedly my opinion might change eventually (even in case of Oblivion, the problems with map design didn't become apparent right out of the box for me), but so far Skyrim feels much less like a big theme park.

 

It's true, Morrowind in fact has really varied world, additionally divided by high mountains and ashes deserts, therefore an illusion of size is large. In OB are two or three types of environment (snowy north region, deserted west and big forest in central, southern and easter Cyrodiil), in Morrowind - a lot. Marshy Bitter Coast, idyllic green Ascadian's Isles, extensive gray Ashlands, volcanic Molag Amur with storms... Heh, exploring MW world is cool, but when I think about some NPC's location descriptions...​

In my opinion world in Skyrim is more, hmm, coherent with gameplay and lore than in Oblivion (tropical jungle FTW). Everybody imagine this province as same as authors designed Skyrim: the mostly snowy land with elongate mountains chains, fabulous views etc. When you travel through this land you feel it's spacious, living and just good-looking.​

 

Just found very interesting mod which changes the quest descriptions in your journal so you should be able to find the quest locations using only the hints not the compass. Haven't tested it myself - author of the mod gives an example:
Vanilla texts:


Well, it literally forces you touse compass... Improved descriptions:


Turning off the quest markers and using the map just a reference of you location and exploration based on these notes promises so much better experience.
To be honest it should be implemented that way from the start, having quest markers as an optional feature. If the quality of the alternate journal entries is as the example promises (seem well-balanced giving the valuable hint but not en exact "I'll place a marker on your map"), then I can finally go the real explorer mode

EDIT: Oh, the link for the mod is: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11135
I hope it gets updated for Dawnguard too!

 

logrus link?

 

Wait, a Guardian Mudcrab? Jesus.

 

God DAMN, guys, you have to believe me when I say Dawnguard is excellent.

The dark indoor areas feature is actually very well used. There are certain newly placed caves in which there are absolutely zero light sources. You can't even tell whether you are walking into a rock or onto an open passage. You need to use a Magelight spell in order to see every five steps in front of you and behind you, in order to keep in mind where you are moving. The complete darkness is used to fool the player very effectively - I was casting Magelight all over what seemed to be a dead end, until I ended up falling into a stream of water that forced me across dozens of different indoor waterfalls. Mistake was lighting the areas above me rather than looking at the ground.

When you are floating away in unknown directions in complete darkness within the network of underwater streams, you have very little time and extreme urgency to find the first solid walking ground on which you can drag yourself away from the streams. Losing your footing, falling into a stream of water, and having to find your way back is one of the most daunting concerns on your mind in these caves.

But not as daunting as what you find in them. The things that are walking around in this complete darkness are what you keep you on your toes. Several times, I have seen two shining eyes in the middle of the dark passageways, before I realized a black cave saber tooth cat had been stealthily hunting me down and waiting for the kill. You can't see them because they are completely camouflaged. Those things do 50 points of damage per claw attack, and just creep up quietly and sneakily in the dark. Remember how Ultima Underworld had these panthers in dark caverns that jumped you out of nowhere? This looks like a direct homage to it.

Finally, there is some use to playing a Khajit or Argonian, so that you can see in these dark caves without attracting attention, and so that you can swim the waters in order to avoid being ambushed by two or three cave saber cats.

 

I've recently begun a new character in Skyrim with SkyRe and this mod and hope I'll be able to play without questmarkers as much as possible (I think most radiant quests aren't part of the mod). Definitely incline for gameplay if it works as good as advertised.
So far I'm not very far in, though, and all quests have been the standard early-game stuff, which I anyway knew where to look for from my first character. Still, as far as I can see, it should be possible to follow descriptions rather than markers now.

I'm also using Civil Unrest mod, which adds zones that simulate the ongoing civil war (previously mostly absent from the game) by staging battles with lots of NPCs of different factions at different places. A bit demanding of the pc, but nice touch - however you can adjust the spawns a bit for weaker or stronger pcs.
Unfortunately a few strange bugs (flying animals, yay!) break immersion a bit from time to time.

No, somehwo I don't remember those. Are you sure it's Ultima Underworld you are talking about?

 

What about consoltards who were not able to find Caius Cosades? Think about teh children wallets logrus